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Who Pays If You Need Long-Term Care Tomorrow
 Christine clicked the telephone off and sat dazed. Her Dad called to say that Mom was being released tomorrow.After time in the hospital and rehab from the stroke, they were sending her home. She still couldn’t eat by herself, or dress herself – Dad sure wasn’t up to cooking and cleaning for both of them and caring for her. Looks like they would be using their retirement savings for a home health care aide or maybe assisted living. Sure not what they had planned. Then it hit her. What financial resources were going to be left for Dad?
Millions of people are facing the situation—and concerns – that Christine faced that day. Assuming that long-term care help is provided by Medicare, it’s a shock when you find out Medicare does not cover such things as home healthcare aides, or assisted living or adult day care.
Who pays for long-term care? You do. If you have money you will pay on your own for those services. Only when you use up all your own money will you be eligible for the government low-income program Medicaid – and the limited option of care in a nursing home. A nursing home is the last place people want to end up..
However, people with long-term care insurance find themselves in a different situation and with a wider set of choices. Long-term care insurance, purchased when you are younger and healthy, provides coverage for long-term care services like home care services, assisted living, adult day care and nursing home.
Having a long-term care insurance policy relieves concerns about the financial burden of long-term care – a year in a nursing home on average costs $ 75,000 according to the MetLife Mature Market Institute and full time home care costs even more – and frees your family to focus on your care and well-being. That’s a big relief!
That’s why long-term care has become such an important part of retirement planning. With medical advances we are living longer. In fact, more than 70% of people over the age of 65 can expect to need some level of long-term care help in their lifetime.
Deciding whether long-long term care insurance is right for you is easy. A specialist in long-term care insurance can help you determine whether it fits your needs and whether you can qualify for coverage. The availability of long-term care insurance is dependent upon your age and health condition. That’s why it’s most common for people to purchase long-term care insurance in their 50’s or early 60’s – people like Christine who are helping aging parents.
Longevity Alliance is a company that has helped thousands of people make the decision about long-term care insurance and helped them find the right policy at the right price. Because they offer plans from a number of high-quality insurance companies, they can match up your needs with the right company. They ask questions about your health, what type of care is important to you, and your budget. Then, if it’s right for you, they work with you to design a long-term care policy that reflects what’s important to you and your budget.
“We’re talking with more and more baby boomers these days who are helping their parents with long-term care. Shocked by the price of long-term care services, they want to find a solution now for their own future long-term care needs, said Steve Zaleznick, CEO of Longevity Alliance. “It’s all about peace of mind, having choices and making sure you don’t put this burden on your children.”
Christine realized there wasn’t much she could do to protect her parent’s hard earned savings. But she could do something to make sure she wasn’t a burden to her children in the future and the money was available for the type of care she would want. She talked with a long-term care specialist who helped her design a policy that matched her values and her budget.
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